ESPN Football Recruiting – 300 Player Rankings
Belleville High School
Providence Day School
Saraland High School
Alabama
Committed
10/08/2022
Miami Central High School
Savannah Christian Preparatory School
A. H. Parker High School
Manchester High School
Georgia
Committed
01/16/2023
Bishop Gorman High School
Bishop Gorman High School
Duncanville High School
Lewisville High School
North Shore High School
Zephyrhills High School
Schley High School
Mandarin High School
Thompson High School
USC
Committed
05/07/2023
Choctaw County High School
Saint Martins Episcopal School
Los Alamitos High School
Edwardsville High School
Camden County High School
Georgia
Committed
04/08/2023
Raines High School
Baylor School
Vigor High School
Georgia
Committed
01/16/2023
Mission Viejo High School
JSerra Catholic High School
Fellowship Christian School
Brentwood Academy
Southside High School
St. Frances Academy
Spain Park High School
West Orange High School
Tampa Bay Tech Senior High
Oregon
Committed
01/26/2023
Maury High School
Douglass High School
Ohio State
Committed
07/29/2022
Mater Dei High School
Thomas County Central High School
Buford High School
Georgia
Committed
12/08/2022
Woodward Academy
IMG Academy
Alabama
Committed
06/02/2023
Mater Dei High School
Summer Creek High School
Monroe High School
Charles Henderson High School
Gonzaga College High School
Westgate High School
Jordan High School
Saraland High School
Texas
Committed
06/03/2023
Northmont Senior High School
Houston County High School
Liberty Christian Academy
Clemson
Committed
06/14/2023
Imhotep Institute Charter High School
Our Lady of Good Counsel High School
Bonita High School
IMG Academy
Patricia E. Paetow High School
Elba High School
Horn High School
Ball High School
Quitman High School
The Benjamin School
Spanish Fork High School
Mater Dei High School
McKinney High School
Cass Technical High School
Mater Dei High School
Wayne County High School
James S. Rickards High School
Pittsburg High School
Buford High School
Lee County High School
Grimsley High School
Evans High School
Alabama
Committed
04/02/2023
Vero Beach Senior High School
Parkview High School
Salem High School
Bergen Catholic High
Westlake High School
South Florence High School
Enterprise High School
John F. Kennedy High School
Abraham Lincoln High School
A. H. Parker High School
Cardinal Newman High School
Westside High School
Toms River North High School
Penn State
Committed
01/30/2023
IMG Academy
Colorado
Committed
12/04/2022
IMG Academy
Weatherford High School
Archbishop Riordan High School
George County High School
Bishop Gorman High School
Greene Central High School
Cocoa High School
Alpharetta High School
Bishop Alemany High School
Billy Ryan High School
Monsignor Donovan High School
Fort Bend Christian Academy
Homestead Senior High School
Kamiak High School
Holmes County Central High School
Oak Grove High School
Shaker Heights High School
Mandarin High School
Hattiesburg High School
Lake Cormorant High School
Parkview Arts & Science Magnet High
Cleveland Heights High School
Villa Angela-St. Joseph High School
The Ensworth School
Washington High School
Notre Dame
Committed
06/18/2023
Alamo Heights High School
American Heritage High School
Ennis High School
Oklahoma
Committed
05/01/2023
Skyline High School
Cedartown High School
Georgia
Committed
06/19/2023
Pleasant Grove High School
Vashon High School
Snyder High School
Peach County High School
Central Catholic High School
Clemson
Committed
06/16/2023
Lee’s Summit North High School
St. Joseph’s Prep School
Centennial High School
Kahuku High School
Lovejoy High School
Friendship Collegiate Academy
Chaminade-Madonna College Preparatory School
Michigan
Committed
12/16/2022
Findlay High School
Catholic Memorial High School
Imhotep Institute Charter High School
Georgia
Committed
07/11/2022
Highland Home High School
Carl Albert High School
Oklahoma
Committed
03/13/2023
Lufkin High School
Millwood High School
Mater Dei High School
Jackson Christian School
Notre Dame Prepatory
South Oak Cliff High
Los Alamitos High School
McDonogh School
Thomas Dale High School
Hartfield Academy
Brownsboro High School
Osceola High School
UCF
Committed
04/14/2023
Quartz Hill High School
Cy-Fair High School
Atascocita High School
Shadow Creek High School
Central High School
Lakota West High School
Winton Woods High School
Booker T. Washington High School
Dodge High School
Rabun Gap Nacoochee School
Port Charlotte High School
San Ramon Valley High School
Whitmer High School
Faith Lutheran High School
St. Joseph’s Prep School
Langston Hughes High School
Alabama
Committed
04/13/2023
Sachse High School
Bethel High School
Buford High School
Berkeley Prep
St. Frances Academy
Geneva High School
Quince Orchard High School
DeSoto High School
Plant Senior High School
Lamar High School
Booker T. Washington High School
North Catholic High School
Boerne High School
Saint Joseph Regional High School
Shadow Creek High School
Notre Dame De La Baie Academy
Valley Christian High School
Bellville High School
St. John’s College High School
Weiss High School
TCU
Committed
06/25/2023
Orange Lutheran High School
Opelousas High School
Jasper High School
Chapel Hill High School
SMU
Committed
06/11/2023
Red Oak High School
Blue Valley Northwest High School
American Heritage High School
Oak Ridge High School
Miami Central High School
Bishop Verot High School
Vandebilt Catholic School
University Laboratory School
Fenwick High School
St. Frances Academy
DeMatha Catholic High School
Salem High School
Brainerd High School
North Crowley High School
Memorial High School
Arbor View High School
Newton High School
Warner Robins High School
Bishop McDevitt High School
Groves High School
DeSoto High School
West Bloomfield High School
IMG Academy
Cegep Garneau
Maury High School
Imani Christian Academy
Murrieta Valley High School
Calhoun High School
Calvary Baptist Academy
Sierra Canyon High School
Eastern View High School
Siegel High School
Chaminade-Madonna College Preparatory School
Saraland High School
David Lipscomb High School
Osceola High School
St. Frances Academy
Miami Central High School
Gautier High School
Ben Davis High School
DePaul Catholic High School
Dyersburg High School
IMG Academy
Acadiana High School
Derby Senior High School
Belen Jesuit Prep
The Hun School Of Princeton
Mill Valley High School
Cardinal Ritter College Prep
Archbishop Spalding High School
Red Oak High School
Carl Albert High School
Simeon Career Academy
Auburn-Riverside High School
Brandeis High School
Cheltenham High School
The Woodlands High School
Penn State
Committed
04/16/2023
Robinson High School
Jefferson High School
The Woodlands High School
Saint Thomas Aquinas High School
Palm Beach Central High School
Brophy Prep
Andy Dekaney High School
David Lipscomb High School
Palatine High School
Saint Louis School
Legacy The School of Sport Sciences
Checotah High School
De La Salle High School
Richland High School
Orange Lutheran High School
Columbia High School
Jesuit High School
Rabun Gap Nacoochee School
Mount Tabor High School
Warren Central High School
Clear Lake High School
West Broward High School
Eau Gallie High School
Sierra Canyon High School
Mount Tabor High School
Highland Home High School
Saint Joseph Regional High School
East Forsyth High School
N Carolina
Committed
06/27/2023
Somerset Academy
Sultana High School
Ball High School
Jule F. Sumner High School
Prince Avenue Christian School
Milton High School
Seminole High School
Leo Junior Senior High School
Matoaca High School
Pittsburg High School
Estacado High School
Martin Luther King High School
Winslow Township High School
JSerra Catholic High School
Arizona St
Committed
06/20/2023
Millard North High School
Nebraska
Committed
04/20/2023
Trinity Episcopal School
Seminole High School
Wynnewood High School
Vanderbilt
Committed
04/08/2023
Buford High School
Warren High School
Greer Senior High School
Germantown High School
East St. Louis High School
Carroll High School
Slinger High School
Stanford
Committed
St. Joseph’s Prep School
Monsignor Bonner High School
Belleville High School
Woodward Academy
Sports
A famous dad, the perfect swing and elite Fortnite skills: Meet MLB’s most fascinating hitter
Warning: What you’re about to read is Jacob Wilson‘s opinion. He is a professional baseball player — a very good one — and not a medical expert, but there are some things he is convinced are true, and this is one of them.
The 23-year-old Wilson, the Athletics’ wunderkind shortstop, is wise enough to understand that the sort of success he has found on the baseball field — a .347 batting average and a near-certain invitation to the All-Star Game coming — comes from a multitude of areas. He is the son of a longtime big leaguer, so certainly genetics helped, and he works relentlessly at his craft, which goes a long way. But the special sauce that built the American League Rookie of the Year favorite, he believes, included a secret ingredient.
Fortnite.
“Kids are going to love this one. Parents are going to hate me,” Wilson said. “I am a big believer in video games. It’s fast decision-making strategy. I think that gets me ready for the game, because when you’re in the box, you have to process a lot. So there’s some days where I’ll wake up and I’ll play video games and then I’ll go to the field, and I’ll have a good day. Some days I won’t play and don’t see the ball well. I think it really helps me train kind of the decision-making that I have to make six, seven hours later at the baseball field.”
Yes, one of the best hitters in the major leagues, a contact maven who strikes out with the infrequency of Tony Gwynn, swears that he’s as good as he is at a kid’s game because of his aptitude at another kid’s game. After Wilson wakes up, he deploys to his living room and parks in a chair. On the table in front of him sit a PC and a controller. He logs in to Fortnite — the 8-year-old game still played by millions every day — hops on the Battle Bus and systematically disposes of those with the misfortune of sharing a map with him.
“If we play a game with me and him and guys we know and you kill him once, you’re like, ‘That’s a good day,'” A’s infielder Max Muncy said. “You could play 50 rounds. Just once is good.”
Muncy has known of Wilson’s Fortnite exploits since they were teammates at Thousand Oaks (California) High, where Wilson’s father, former Pittsburgh shortstop Jack Wilson, coached. Back then, Jack actually questioned whether the game was interfering with Jacob’s baseball growth — though he understood his son’s reasoning. Over his 12-year big league career, Jack earned a reputation as one of the best pingpong players in the major leagues. It was pure reaction, not unlike hitting, and he complemented his pregame work in the batting cage with the brain training found in a paddle and hollow ball.
He saw the same opportunity in video games for his son — with a caveat.
“I do believe in the hand-eye coordination that video games give — as long as you do your homework,” Jack said. “Kids, if you’re reading, do your homework.”
The Wilsons are not alone in their belief that unconventional methods off the field can lead to success on it. Studies back up the suggestion that video games can be beneficial for brain activity. And considering the recognition being lavished on Jacob Wilson — he is more than a quarter-million votes ahead of Kansas City star Bobby Witt Jr. in All-Star balloting to be the American League’s starting shortstop — the benefits can be pronounced.
Of course, dropping into Anarchy Acres does not a big league hitter make. The story of Wilson’s ascent actually starts in his backyard, where he spent countless hours figuring out how to thrive in a game that simply isn’t built for hitters like him anymore.
Heaven for the Wilson family is a regulation-sized turfed infield with a FungoMan ground ball machine, a fence covered with famous retired numbers and stadium logos, a full dugout on the third-base side — and a grill stationed in center field in case someone gets hungry. The backyard of the family’s home is a testament to form and function, and it’s where Jacob learned how to be — and how not to be — like his father.
“It was a place built for guys who just love the grind of wanting to get better every day,” Jack said.
Jack’s bat was never as adept as his glove, and to last a dozen years in the big leagues, he needed countless reps to keep his fielding at a level that, according to Baseball-Reference, produced the fifth-most defensive wins above replacement this century, behind only Andrelton Simmons, Yadier Molina, Adrian Beltre and Kevin Kiermaier.
“You know that idea about being able to write a letter to your former self on what would you tell yourself now?” Jack said. “I get to do that with Jake. And I said, ‘You know, this is the way I hit. I don’t want you to hit like this.’ Because there were so many things I wish I could have done differently. If I were to build a perfect hitter, what would I do?”
He started with Miguel Cabrera. Wilson always admired how tall he stood in the batter’s box before sinking into his legs. Then it was Mike Trout. The simplicity of his swing has always been a marvel, but in particular Wilson appreciated the speed at which he loads his hands, allowing Trout to be on time even for 100 mph fastballs. The final lesson was Albert Pujols’ bat path, which was so flat and stayed in the zone for so long that it allowed him to sting the ball from foul pole to foul pole while maintaining strikeout numbers that were well below league average.
To hone that Voltron of a swing, a teenage Wilson would grip a custom wood bat with a 1½-inch barrel — an inch less than a standard big league barrel — and face his dad, who stood 45 feet away and ripped 85 mph fastballs and sliders using a tennis ball. If he didn’t catch the ball on the meat of the barrel, it would spin sideways, forcing him to learn to maneuver his bat with special dexterity.
The skinny bat made a regulation-sized model feel twice as big. When he took regular batting practice, Jacob always started by peppering the right side of the field on his first dozen swings. Even though Jacob was bigger than his father — at 6-foot-3, he is a comparatively imposing presence — Jack didn’t want him to fall into the trap of always trying to pull the ball. While that approach works for some hitters, Cabrera, Trout and Pujols embraced and embodied an all-fields approach.
By Wilson’s junior year in high school, the work started to pay off. Wilson didn’t strike out once all season. He didn’t punch out during his COVID-shortened senior season, either, then continued that trend at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, where his sophomore year he whiffed seven times in 275 plate appearances and his junior season had five punchouts in 217 times at the plate. Twice, he received a plaque from the NCAA for being the toughest hitter to strike out in college baseball.
The A’s took Wilson with the sixth pick in the loaded 2023 draft. Last year, he hit .433/.473/.668 with just 15 strikeouts in 226 plate appearances across three minor league levels and, just a year and 10 days after being drafted, he debuted in the big leagues.
In a world of launch angle and exit velocity, Wilson arrived in the majors wanting to be more like Luis Arráez and Nico Hoerner, contact artists nonpareil who value batting average and are allergic to strikeouts.
“I just take strikeouts so personally,” Wilson said. “It’s the one thing in this game that makes me more mad than anything. So I’ll go up there and I’ll swing at a pitch that’s maybe a couple inches off and take a base hit to right. So I think batting average definitely is a stat that should be seen and should matter for most hitters.”
Wilson’s swing is kinetic, with a wide-open stance that closes as he moves his legs and flaps his arms — a little Chicken Dance, a little Cabrera-Trout-Pujols. While he hasn’t always been this twitchy — “I’ve got to keep my muscles moving a little bit,” Wilson said — it works for him. He keeps the knob of the bat in the direction of the ball longer than most hitters, reminding himself to “stay inside the baseball,” a lesson preached ad nauseam by Jack. Aiming to strike the inside of the ball, Jacob said, keeps him from rolling over it. He lives by the old axiom “good hitters get jammed” and doesn’t shy away from flipping a duck snort between the infield and outfield.
The approach has served him well. After starting the year in the No. 9 hole, Wilson has hit first or second every game since May 7. Only Arráez has a lower strikeout rate than Wilson’s 6.8% — and Wilson has nine home runs compared with Arráez’s one. Of all the strikeout-averse hitters in the game, the one with a line most comparable to Wilson’s.347/.388/.487 is Cleveland third baseman Jose Ramirez, who is primed to play in his seventh All-Star Game this season.
“It’s not even his hits,” said Nick Kurtz, the A’s first baseman and fellow rookie. “I’ve seen multiple times where there’s a sinker up and in that was going to hit him, and he hit it to second base. Sometimes they’re a hit, sometimes they’re not. Every time, though, I’m like, ‘How the hell did he do that?’ Being able to touch it, not break your bat and go the other way with it? I’m at a loss for words.”
On April 5 at 11:13 p.m., Jack Wilson’s phone dinged. He had texted his son to congratulate him on a good team win by the A’s. Jacob didn’t want to hear it. He was mad. He had gone 1-for-4 with a two-run double, but that wasn’t good enough.
“I’m not a .250 hitter,” Jacob texted.
Jack laughed. He batted .265 in his career. It was enough to earn him more than $40 million playing. His son wants to be better — not because he’s greedy but because he’s capable of it.
“That’s a good thought process,” Jack said. “Because when I was a rookie and I got a hit, I was pumped. I always tell him, ‘Man, hitting is freaking hard.’ It’s just not going to be every day where your swing is on point and you match up. It’s just the way it is. So this has been a real learning experience. And it will be for a long time. The more he learns now, the better off he is in the future and hopefully spends a long time as an Athletic.”
The A’s are counting on their star shortstop as a linchpin of their impressive offensive core. Wilson is the fulcrum, Kurtz the powerhouse with a propensity for late-inning heroics. Designated hitter Brent Rooker and outfielder Lawrence Butler are both sluggers locked up to long-term deals. First baseman Tyler Soderstrom and catcher Shea Langeliers provide additional home run thump. Denzel Clarke is going to win multiple Gold Gloves in center field. If they can build a pitching staff to match, the team scheduled to move to Las Vegas for the 2028 season will be among the most exciting in baseball.
And it all starts with the kid who is definitely not a .250 hitter and definitely does take strikeouts personally.
“I mean, I’ve studied his swing,” Muncy said. “There’s things that he does so well that other guys don’t do that leads to that. And I think one of the things is probably just his mentality. He has always thought he could put it in play. I don’t think there’s ever been a guy where he is like, ‘I can’t put it in play.’ When you have that supplemental edge — I can put it in play no matter what — that helps.”
Every edge helps, be it bat-to-ball skills, burgeoning power or the ability to no-scope someone from 300 meters. Wilson has no plans to abandon his Fortnite reps. It’s part of his training now, and even if it doesn’t work for everyone, he sees Victory Royales leading to victories for the A’s.
“Everybody has their own approach and everybody’s here for a reason,” Wilson said. “This is the big leagues. Everybody is the best in the world at what they do.”
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike